MARY:
Hey everybody. It’s Mary Trump here with my friend and fellow Nerd Avenger and journalist extraordinaire, Brian Karam. Brian, hi.
BRIAN:
Hi. Good to see you.
MARY:
Good to see you too. You actually got a little bit of downtime the last couple of weeks, so I’m glad for you because it’s been insane. Tell me what you think about this. We are living in very difficult, dark, troubling times, and it feels like there are no weekends anymore. There literally is no downtime. And it often feels like that one week is worse than the one that preceded it. And I know sometimes that objectively can’t be true. This week feels like it was, but at the same time, isn’t part of the exhaustion and the difficulty in grappling and processing that everything is cumulative?
BRIAN:
I think you said something at the very beginning of Donald Trump’s new era of presidency, his new regime. You said there’s no worst with Donald. It gets worse every day. There is a cumulative effect, but quite honestly, he presses the norms. He stretches them out every damn day. I’ve been working on a documentary and I can’t get it done. It’s on the first 100 days of Donald Trump just trying to bring ... I don’t recognize this country today from where it was just a year ago.
It’s not the same. And anybody who pretends it is has either had their head stuck under a rock or their lips permanently attached to Donald Trump’s political posterior. The fact of the matter is it’s extremely difficult in the United States to recognize the United States, at least as we were brought up in the United States. So there is a cumulative effect, but I also think it’s Donald Trump pressing because it all accumulates. He wants to go that much further to see how much farther he can push it. Just look at this week. The idea that a president of the United States would install a walk of fame on that passageway between the Oval Office and the residents. I’ve walked through there, I don’t know how many hundred times in the last 40 years—a very solemn place, very presidential, but [Donald’s] turned it into a sideshow with posters and now the bronze plaques with just basically truth social ramblings
At the one that he has up there with Clinton says, “And his wife lost to me in 2016.” There’s no depth that he won’t plunge to.
MARY:
Right. There’s no worst. There’s only worse.
And for those who don’t know or who aren’t familiar, a few months ago Donald placed presidential portraits along the wall leading to the West Wing. But instead of a portrait of Joe Biden, there’s a photograph of an auto pen, which is just sophomoric schoolyard bully bullshit. As you mentioned, they just recently added plaques underneath each portrait. And Joe Biden’s him refers to him as “Sleepy Joe Biden;” “the worst president American history;” his “severe mental decline;” “the Biden crime family;” and his “radical left handlers.” And Karoline Leavitt, who’s the worst press extraordinary in modern American history.
BRIAN:
No, I don’t know what she is.
MARY:
She’s a propagandist and a Nazi, basically. She wrote, “The plaques are eloquently written descriptions of each president and the legacy they left behind. As a student of history, many were written by [Donald] himself. I’m not saying they weren’t written by Donald because, as you said, they sound like his social media posts, but he’s not a student of history. Maybe it’s not the most important thing, but there’s no decorum anymore. There’s no decency. And one of the things that’s driven me crazy over the last 10 years, and increasingly so over the last 11 months, is that the right accuses the left of being elitist snobs who are constantly trying to shove our cultural values down their throats. But that’s what they so. They want to turn everything into NASCAR, WWE, and Ultimate Fighting.
There are no spaces for decorum anymore and bemoaning that somehow makes us snobs. Now we’re going to have WWE, Patriot Games-style competitions at the White House. We could say nothing is presidential anymore; or you could say this is what it is to be presidential now.
BRIAN:
Look, he’s a symptom of the problem. We have met the enemy and he is us, said Pogo. So we all bear some responsibility in how we got here, but he bears responsibility for his own actions. Well, maybe not if he’s mentally challenged or if he’s mentally incompetent, but nonetheless, up until that point he was. But to your point, if in fact I accepted as a fact that the Democrats had shoved something down your throat, what is the response? Revenge? Because that’s all this is about.
There’s nothing about bringing people together. It’s all revenge. And that’s twenty-four seven. Having covered two administrations of this guy, Donald Trump is about fear, loathing, and money. And at the end of the day, it’s all about revenge. Fear, money, loathing, revenge. Caring about the United States as a country, not so much. When you get outside of the United States, you see really quickly, just what the rest of the world thinks of us now.
You can see for yourself, in the way the news is presented. Our news sucks compares to the rest of the world, and we’ve got the First Amendment. In this country, you will not see the reporting going on about Venezuela, Gaza, Ukraine, or screwing over Europe. Last week the head of NATO said, “We have to prepare for a war with Russia. We’re next.”
You didn’t see any of that reporting here in the United States or very little of it. We were more concerned with whatever Donald Trump wants to deflect with. And I laughed at his Wednesday night speech because it was horrible. It was laugh-inducing, but we really need to concentrate on the substance of what he’s doing, too. The plaques anger me, but those are all mere deflections from what he’s really doing. And folks, if you think that Donald Trump cares about anything but himself, you are either asleep or have your lips surgically attached to his political posterior.
MARY:
Before we shift gears, I want to get back to what you said about how Donald constantly is pushing the boundaries, and that is consistent throughout his life. So, regardless of whether he’s in cognitive decline or his severe undiagnosed psychiatric orders are deteriorating, which they are, or it’s his physical health, the pushing of the envelope to see how much further he can go, that is instinct, that is in his bones, but we have to start paying more attention to the people who enable this because he’s just acting from instinct. As you said, he’s terrified. He’s full of hate, especially self-hatred, and he is so desperate to fill that black hole of need with money because money’s the only thing he understands, the only thing he values, but he’s not driving the bus anymore.
BRIAN:
Susie Wiles is.
MARY:
That’s what I wanted to ask you. Susie Wiles, who most people probably don’t even know exists, is one of the two or three most powerful people in the United States government. She is the chief of staff to the president of the United States, the gatekeeper. She has been flying under the radar until recently. I’m very curious to know what you think of this—Susie Wiles sat down for 11 separate interviews with Vanity Fair and she basically she talked shit about a lot of people, including Donald. What is her game here?
BRIAN:
I think she believes she’s the smartest one at the table and she wants people to know it. She also wants people to understand what she believes her job to be which is to facilitate what Donald Trump wants. And while she pushes back, I think she was telling the world that “he makes the decisions, I implement the policy. You want something done, you come to me.” And this is a long shot, but it does tell you something that could be very instructive to Democrats and Republicans who want to do something to curb Donald Trump after the midterm elections; she’s telling you two things: If you go with impeachment, I’m the lynchpin there. And if you go with the 25th amendment, I’m also the lynchpin there. If you’re going to pull that lever, nothing happens if it doesn’t go through Susie Wiles. That’s just a fact.
MARY:
So she fancies herself kingmaker.
BRIAN:
I think she does. And take a look at what she said about Donald and Rubio and how they defended her afterwards and came out and said, “Hey, this is Vanity Fair. This is fake news, and she’s a great gal.” Well, she’s the only one holding it together, folks.
MARY:
And that’s the thing, she says she was taken out of context. In what context does saying that Donald has an “alcoholic personality” make him look good?
BRIAN:
We’re going to see how that plays out, but clearly she’s not going anywhere.
BRIAN:
A lot of chiefs of staff are very good about putting themselves right in the middle, and I guess they’re the sitting at the head of the table among equals. What she has done is set herself apart from everybody else in the cabinet. You also see her in Oval Office or diplomatic room meetings off to the corner. She says she likes to let the dogs fight, but who’s holding the leash ultimately? She’s claiming she does. And Donald, we know certainly isn’t. And for the love of God, for Donald to come out and defend her.
MARY:
She did have the advantage of knowing he wasn’t going to read the article. He was just going to accept whatever spin she gave him. It’s going to be fascinating to see how this stuff plays out.
BRIAN:
What do you think? You said you had your thoughts.
MARY:
I think it was a flex on Wiles’ part. I think she was laying down her marker and she was hedging her bets by saying, “I tried to reign in his worst impulses, so don’t blame me.” But you know what, Susie Wiles, we will see you in the Hague along with the rest of the Nazis if all goes as it should.
I wanted to switch gears a little You mentioned that, despite the fact we have a First Amendment here, news coverage abroad is more in-depth, it’s more intelligent, it doesn’t assume that the viewers are idiots, it’s less partisan, et cetera. Although we have a First Amendment here, I think by default, a lot of news organizations are failing to make use of it. sometimes it’s a sin of omission.
So. what do we do about that when corporate media is pulling its punches, is keeping facts from the American people to protect their bottom line, which isn’t democracy, it’s money.
BRIAN:
I wrote a book about this. It’s called Free the Press. You’ve got to break up media monopolies, A. And B, I think we have to reevaluate what journalism is. This is a theme that I think is worth developing. Journalism is the application of the scientific method to mass communication. If we look at it that way, then we have to understand that the story we walk out getting our preconceived notions we have to throw away and we have to cover the facts and report them as we know them. Now in the scientific method, you have peer review. In journalism, you’ve got to have an editor. You’ve got to have at least one person sitting over your shoulder saying, “That spelling is wrong. Let’s check the grammar. Where’d you get that quote? Is this an opinion? How did you vet these facts?” At least one person, but great if you have two or three, because real journalism is also a collaborative effort. The lone wolf person can’t exist. I have so many people on the right who say, “These are facts and I’m telling you the facts.”
And I say, “How do you know they’re facts?” They respond, “Because I’m telling you.” I ask them who’s on their staff. But it’s just them so, in the end, how do I know it’s anything more than their opinion? That doesn’t mean anything. That’s not peer review. And you have to have peer review, you have to have an editor. And I think that is the way we fix it, but there’s no monetary incentive to do it right now except for this. They’re losing their audience. The mainstream or the corporate media are fighting over smaller and smaller portions of the overall pie, leaving independent journalism a vast, large, wide avenue from which to plow through.
We have to make sure that we maintain the norms that bring good journalism forward. Look what’s happened to CBS since Donald forced them to their knee because of the sale. They’ve become another Fox, another CNN. They can advertise all they want about how great they are at reporting, but if you go outside of the U.S. and you will see exactly how poor they are.
MARY:
I’m not saying there aren’t good journalists anymore at outlets like CBS and The Washington Post. But when you put the inept, unqualified hack, Barry Weiss in charge of anything, you’re telling on yourself and it’s not going to end well for them.
BRIAN:
When I was a kid, I wanted to work for 60 Minutes. I wanted to be a part of something that was investigative and hard-hitting and did its research and vetted its facts. And that’s not the case anymore pretty much anywhere. Look who they’re hiring. The first day I walked into the Brady Briefing Room at the White House, and Helen Thomas and Sam Donaldson and all those people were there, Sam said, “Brian, look at that first row. In those seven seats there are more than 200 years of experience. Listen to all of them.”
You look at the Brady Briefing Room today and in that first row of reporters, you’re lucky if there’s 50 years of experience. The institutional knowledge that we used to have in the reporting press in the pool and the White House has ceased to exist because the people who own the means of distribution of the word journalism have hired cheaper, meaning younger, people. Then they boot them out after they have a few years to bring in someone with less experience who’s cheaper.
That’s all it is. It’s just a freaking game.
MARY:
I want to get back to what you were saying about the view from Europe and the rest of the world. One thing that’s true across countries is that we’re all grappling with the fact that media has become siloed. It’s very difficult if you’re in a bubble to get outside of it. And of course, the rise of independent media and a lot of independent media outlets that aren’t held to any standards. Even though Europe is facing the same challenges, they do seem to be much better at it, and to have more integrity about how they approach journalism. When I was over in the UK in the spring, I did some media hits and I was shocked at not just the difference in the quality of the interviews, but the difference in how informed average citizens are; how much more worried and clear-eyed they are about what’s going on here than most of us are.
BRIAN:
That’s because they’re outside of the bubble. I was sitting in a pub Dublin talking to an investigator for the national police. He knows more about Donald Trump than most people back here. They’re well aware of who he is and are much better informed because take a look at the norms of journalism that we developed here.
There’s never been a golden age of journalism, but I’ll tell you this, we were close. We were better than we are now. After Richard Nixon fell because of journalism, because of reporting, I think there were many people in government who said, “We’ve got to rein this stuff in.” It was Reagan who destroyed all the guardrails that allowed us to be good at what we do. That type of institutional destruction has not occurred in Europe. Reporters Without Borders ranks the best countries in the world for free press. We used to be in the top 10, now we’re like 40th and countries like Finland and Switzerland in the top 10.
That’s because they have respected and maintained and put legislation behind protecting journalism. It’s done the way it should be done and we don’t do it that way anymore even though we were the ones who developed the norms. They took the American experience, adapted it to Europe and enhanced it. Meanwhile our government for the last 40 years has institutionally destroyed journalism. And there are people that are now practicing the craft and the art who don’t understand. They have no clue as to how it really operates.
MARY:
But the good news is, there’s a roadmap. We just aren’t on the road anymore. We need to get back on the road and hopefully there’s going to be a wave election next year.
BRIAN:
I don’t think Donald Trump’s going to like what’s coming down the pike. And I think Susie Wiles has kind of indicated where it’s going, and I think Marjorie Taylor Green has kind of told you where it’s going.
MARY:
Brian has got to be one of the hardest working, most prolific journalist out there. So, tell everybody where to find you, where to watch you because I consider you one of the essential voices.
BRIAN:
The name of the book is Free the Press. And you can find me on Substack at Reporter’s Notebook, a weekly column and Salon. And then the podcast, A Hard Pass with two professors in which we discuss the difficulties of being a journalist and what we have to do to improve journalism. Also Free the Press where we do a weekend review of the news and Just Ask the Question which includes entertainment, arts, and politics.
MARY:
That’s where we first met, on an episode of Just Ask the Question.
Thanks everybody for hanging out with me and Brian today.
